Santimonious

How can darkness know light?

He was clothed in white. He held a bag which seemed weighty. The clothes had sharp edges, an evidence of having being sandwiched between a pressing iron and a pressing board. Not a single stain will be tolerated on that piece of fabric.

Image source: Pinterest

After a hectic day in school, I hailed a tricycle. The man sat in the passenger area. He was an aged fellow; tentatively in his late fifties.

'Sir, just come to the back while I sit in front', I appealed after the aged man excused himself to share the seat with the driver. Like why would he do so when they were just two seated in the passenger area which can carry three persons at a time.

He cuts in the train of my thought as he spoke to the rider: 'Na sa farin kaya shi ya sa na ki zama a baya (I am wearing white clothes that is why I refused seating behind)'.

I could not hold the surprise. 'Bayan nan bai fi gaban ba? (Isn't this passenger area better than sharing a seat with the rider?)’.

He spoke to the rider instead. 'Ka san çan two sides ne. Ama nan, gaife daya ne (Behind, I will be seated between two people. In front here, I just have a person beside me)’.

How funny. The other fellow beside me wore a checkered shirt with multiple colours. The white boxes were clean. For White Papa, our clothes will taint his white clothes.

Sanctimonious. That is what the actions of White Papa allegorise. When someone thinks of himself as holier than anyone else. When one thinks of himself as too holy to be seen with people who seem otherwise. Can such a disposition correct evil? And can the lost find light if darkness is starved of light?

Jesus lived in contrast to the perception of what the religious leaders of his time expected of God's annointed one, the Messiah. It made no sense to them that the Holy One of God will associate with the sinful. But how else can the tongue so use to bitterness know sweetness? How else can darkness know light?

White Papa was glued to the driver who, by common sense, we can conclude has the higher proportion of harmattan dust resting on his clothes, given that he must have been on the road in motion since before God-knows-when. White Papa must have thought that I'd be sceptical of his appeal, if he asked me to sit in the centre while he transfers to the edge in the passenger area.

White Papa was obviously uncomfortable sharing a seat with the rider as we travelled. The vehicle faulted in the busy area of Farin-Gada market. White Papa couldn't sit until the vehicle was fixed; vehicles raised dust while passing the right side of the vehicle we were in. White Papa had to walk away from the vehicle until it was fixed and until the dust settled while standing under the scorching heat from the sun.

Darkness (black) knows its end when it encounters light (white). Keeping away the latter from the former is ignoring its essence.